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shifts; fertile in expedients or contrivance. Wright. Shifty and thrifty as old Greek or modern Scot, there were few things he could not invent, and perhaps nothing he could not endure. C. Kingsley.

A Linnæan genus of Quadrumana which included the types of numerous modern genera. By modern writers it is usually restricted to the genus which includes the orang-outang.

a kind popular in Germany in the latter part of the 18th century. It was often comic, had modern characters, and patterned its music on folk song with strictly subordinated accompaniment.

One of the triad of Hindoo gods. He is the avenger or destroyer, and in modern worship symbolizes the reproductive power of nature.

er any fact or truth can be certainly known; a universal doubter; a Pyrrhonist; hence, in modern usage, occasionally, a person who questions whether any truth or fact can be established on philosophical grounds; sometimes, a critical inquirer, in opposition to a dogmatist. All this criticism [of Hume] proceeds upon the…

Formerly, defamation generally, whether oral or written; in modern usage, defamation by words spoken; utterance of false, malicious, and defamatory words, tending to the damage and derogation of another; calumny. See the Note under Defamation. Burril.

reely exposed to the sun; anciently, an apartment or inclosure on the roof of a house; in modern times, an apartment in a hospital, used as a resort for convalescents.

One of the armored projections fitted with gun ports, used on modern war vessels.

secured to the heel, or above the heel, of a horseman, to urge the horse by its pressure. Modern spurs have a small wheel, or rowel, with short points. Spurs were the badge of knighthood. And on her feet a pair of spurs large. Chaucer.

ll; quietness; silence; calmness; inactivity. Painting, then, was the art demanded by the modern intellect upon its emergence from the stillness of the Middle Ages. J. A. Symonds.

or part of the choral ode, sung during this movement. Also sometimes used of a stanza of modern verse. See the Note under Antistrophe.

To regard as a fool, or as foolish. [R.] The modern sciolist stultifies all understanding but his own, and that which he conceives like his own. Hazlitt.

Shakespeare's age] . . . wore masks as the sole substitute known to our ancestors for the modern parasol. De Quincey.

a) To bring secta, followers or witnesses, to prove the plaintiff's demand. [Obs.] (b) In modern usage, to institute an action. -- To follow suit. (Card Playing) See under Follow, v. t.

Sworn brotherhood; a society in ancient Greece nearly resembling a modern political club.

The term has also been applied to different kinds of silk goods, from the 16th century to modern times. Lined with taffeta and with sendal. Chaucer.

A weed that grows among wheat and other grain; -- alleged by modern naturalists to be the Lolium temulentum, or darnel. Didst not thou sow good seed in thy field From whence then hath it tares Matt. xiii. 27. The "darnel" is said to be the tares of Scripture, and is the only deleterious species belonging to the whole o…

res; -- a mode of ornamentation practiced by various barbarous races, both in ancient and modern times, and also by some among civilized nations, especially by sailors.

er transient guests are accomodated with rooms and meals; an inn; a hotel; especially, in modern times, a public house licensed to sell liquor in small quantities.

In modern usage, a book or roll in which the lands of private persons or corporations are described by their site, boundaries, number of acres, or the like. [Written also terrar.]